DEERS updates halted at base ID offices

May. 10, 2013 - 02:52PM
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Gone are the days of rolling into the base ID office to have personnel information updated or corrected in the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System.

Customer services representatives in base ID offices will no longer be allowed to manually update or correct an airman’s information in DEERS because the system has been locked to such actions, Air Force personnel officials announced May 9. Instead, such updates and corrections will be made in personnel offices.

“The change will help ensure and maintain data integrity,” Air Force personnel spokesman Mike Dickerson said in an email. “It’s part of an ongoing effort by DoD and the service branches to provide accurate and timely data to the DEERS database.”

Before the change, customer services representatives could correct or update information about a member’s citizenship status, date of birth, gender, Social Security information and service dates using the Real-time Automated Personnel Identification System.

DEERS is used to enroll airmen and their eligible family members for an identification card and benefits such as medical and dental care, federal installation access and access to installation facilities such as the base commissary or exchange.

Airmen are required to update DEERS for major life events, such as marriage, divorce, birth or death of a dependent, promotion, re-enlistment, extension, retirement, separation or unit transfer to another branch of service or agency.

This change will not affect the ability to make updates for dependent family members.

“Members’ DEERS records are established and updated by an authoritative data feed directly from a personnel source like AFPC or the Air Reserve Personnel Center,” said Ed Yoder, the personnel center’s DEERS/RAPIDS operations branch assistant chief, in a release. “If information about a member that feeds into DEERS is wrong, the ID card issuing office can’t fix that. Only the office of primary responsibility for that information can correct it.”

That means if an airman’s re-enlistment date is wrong, or citizenship status changes, the airman needs to contact the offices responsible for that information to get it changed in DEERS, Yoder said.

Yoder said airmen who don’t know the appropriate office for specific information can find it on the myPers website.

“Once your record is updated, you can check the corrections or updates online at the eMilConnect website,” Yoder said. “Depending on the nature of the correction, [you] may need to get a new ID card, so keep an eye on your records.”

For more information on DEERS updates, visit the myPers website at https://mypers.af.mil and enter “21534” or “DEERS Record Correction” in the search window.■